The political situation in Greece

Tsipras makes a comeback – wants to unite Greece’s left

Former Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is making a political comeback, reports the AP. On Tuesday, he announced that he is launching a new party with the goal of uniting the country’s fragmented left-wing movement.

When he launched the party, he said that he wants to focus on bringing down the cost of living and reducing economic disparities. He was also critical of the current government’s close ties to Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Greece has been governed for the past two terms by the right-wing New Democracy party and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Although the party has lost some support, it remains the largest party by far, according to recent opinion polls, Politico reports.

This is partly because the opposition is very fragmented, with a number of small parties. New ones are also being added gradually. In addition to Tsipras’s party, another party has been launched just in the past week, and a third is expected to be presented shortly.

New parties from right to left challenge in Greece

A number of new parties are emerging in Greece ahead of the elections that will take place before next summer, writes Politico.

On Tuesday, former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras launched a new left-wing party. Just a few days earlier, Maria Karystianou, the mother of one of the victims of the great train accident in 2023, announced that she was starting a party with a clear anti-establishment focus.

Karystianou has become one of the leaders of the protest movement against the right-wing government that was formed after the accident.

Antonis Samaras, also a former Prime Minister, is also expected to launch a new right-wing party soon that is expected to be able to steal votes from the current governing party New Democracy.

– The new parties seem to cover the entire political spectrum from left to right, but also beyond the traditional right-left scale, and will therefore definitely change the political landscape, says George Arapoglou, head of the opinion institute Pulse RC.